down the rabbit hole
by gallaghergrl
Summary: AU:  so here I am, writing in a freaking journal in an attempt to sum up and explain everything that has happened to me ever since my "problem" started.  Olivia Ryans was invincible against everyone, except herself
1. preveiw

**.**

* * *

**Down the Rabbit Hole**

_~so here I am, writing in a freaking journal in an attempt to sum up and explain everything that has happened to me ever since my "problem" started._

**[.][.][.][.][.][.][.]**

**[Bulimia:]** (buh-lee-mee-uh) ___–noun_

[1.] an **illness** in which a person binges on food or has regular episodes of significant overeating and feels a loss of control. The affected person then uses various methods - such as vomiting or laxative abuse - to prevent weight gain.

[2.] a habitual **disturbance** in eating behavior mostly affecting young women of normal weight, characterized by frequent episodes of grossly excessive food intake followed by self-induced vomiting to avert weight gain.

[3.] a **disorder** characterized by compulsive overeating followed by vomiting.

**[.][.][.][.][.][.][.]**

**10/27/09**

**From the desk of Dr. Moria Harrington:**

**Patient is still in denial. Continual refusal against being placed back into parental guardianship has been over written. Will be transferred out of rehabilitation in approximately two weeks. ****Re-evaluation will take place in three months.**

******-16578039K**

******[.][.][.][.][.][.][.]**  


Olivia Ryans was invincible against everyone, except herself.

**[.][.][.][.][.][.][.]**

Assignment: Write in a personal journal you entire in depth experience with your health "problem". All entries shall be unread but check for actual writing. Journal writing must be written at least once a month or so, no exceptions.

**[.][.][.][.][.][.][.]**

written by:  
~Rory (a.k.a) gallaghergrl

beta-ed by:  
~Merc (a.k.a. Child of the Masquerade)

Disclaimer:   
This is my offical disclaimer for the Story. This story is actually my book report for English last year. Shocker I know. We had to write journal entries from the point of view of a major, but not main character, in any book of out choosing. I wrote from Whitney's point of view to the book by Sarah Dessen, Just Listen. Though once I reach the end of the report I'll most likely just keep writing and continue the story for what might eventually be somewhat romantic. :) I do not own Just Listen or Clique in any way or from sadly.


	2. entry1

Dear Journal,

I promised Moria that I'd be completely honest and for now I will keep that promise. I don't owe her anything, but apparently I own myself this. So here I am, writing in a freaking journal in an attempt to sum up and explain everything that has happened to me ever since my "problem" started.

I doubt I could fit my entire life in one little journal but according to Moria I don't need my whole life in here, that's what my little autobiography she's making me write is for. This is only for the things that matter most and might have influenced my "problem" and the things that are currently happening and effect or matter most. But really how am I suppose to know what matters the most? How does anyone know what matters the most? I didn't bother offering this logic to Moria; she'd just brush it aside like anytime I try to tell her she's crazy. Obviously the only person who has to admit their problems here is me.

Currently life at home sucks a much as it ever has so I best just start the story of my "problem". I guess I could start with the beginning and from what I can tell the beginning always starts at home; that's where modeling started too. It all started with Kristen, but then again it always has. That's her jobs as the oldest sister, to lead, even when I don't want to follow. Kristen's older by two years. Perfect, bubbly, and the one everyone wants to be friends with. Forget the fact she'd bossy and loud, no one ever seemed to notice that but me, and maybe Claire.

Not that Claire would say anything about it. She's too _nice_. If Kristen appeared to be perfect, Claire really is. Younger by two years, she's the baby of the family. Sweet, innocent, innocent and delicate like a little flower. Everything that she said was perfect and polite unlike Kristen who blurts out whatever she feels without thought of others' feelings. Claire had always known what was expected and delivered without fail. Even when she was little and our grandmother died little Claire knew not to ask question and quietly helped Kristen with the housework. Claire really has always been the perfect one.

And squeezed in between my two practically perfect sisters is me, the odd one out. Moody, gloomy and silent; I'm the one who prefers closed doors. The one who can cut you to the core with the few words I bother to waste on you. I knew what I could do to you with just a glare, in fact there was a time I was proud of it. Now its just easier if I never have to see anyone, though my parents clearly don't get that by the way the cart me from one therapist to another. I've never been one to talk much though. I've always picked my words carefully. Even when I was "healthier" I chose what I wanted to say with though, unlike Kristen who could fill the room with her empty words.

There are my parents too, of course, but if I wanted to really start the story it's only my mother that mattered. She was the one who got Kristen started with modeling when Kris was 8, in an Easter ad. I wanted to model the moment my sister started too. It started as a classic little sister behavior until I got in front of camera, and then it wasn't. It was more than that. It was like that was the stage made for me. Where the whole world could watch me and love me without me needing to waste my words prance around like Kristen had too. I could be the one admired and nothing mattered but the camera, the one eye watching me that I didn't mind scrutinizing me. I adored the camera; I craved having its lens on me. I was willing to do anything to keep it on me, which is I guess what led me to my "problem". I wanted it too much. I was willing to die for the camera and I almost did- die, that is.

Of all my sisters I had the most potential in the modeling world. We were all beautiful, with the classic Block girls' blond hair and blue eyes. Kristen, at 5 ft 8 ½ inches, had the ability to convey her bubbly personality in just one glance but she was too curvy and voluptuous to go as far as everyone thought I would. Besides she simply didn't want it as much as I did. There were shoots where she'd just roll out of bed, hung over, and arrive late at the show. I'd never do that. Claire was bit to short (5 ft 7 inches) with her wiry athletic body, but she was still gorgeous. And yet she still wasn't expected for what my mother thought would come to me. I was the one with the real potential. Tall and rail thin with perfect bone structure and haunting eyes. At my 5 ft 10 inches height, I had everything I needed to make it. Or so everyone thought.

But then after my senior year of high school I headed to New York to try at modeling like Kristen had two years earlier. Sharing the apartment she already had was my parents' idea, which was more an order than anything. It started out as well as could be possibly expected. After all we had fought since I was born there was simply no way we'd get together easily. We were much too different. In fact Kristen wasn't even the problem; at least not when it started. It was me.

I had taken New York City by storm. Well, that's what it felt like at first. I was getting steady jobs. More than Kristen ever did, which was one of favorite things about my time there that I never told anyone about. But then it all started slipping away. The lens wasn't on me as much. My spotlight seemed to be dimming. Slowly fading away from me. And I didn't know what to do. The photographers were letting the camera wonder away from me, like I wasn't worth it as much as I had been. My agent stopped giving me as many calls about jobs as I had gotten before. I still had work but not the same endless focus I had once had only months earlier. It was scary and daunting. If felt like my time was running out. I need to capture the cameras again soon or everything I'd done so far would be lost. I'd be failing. I'd have nothing to show. Nothing to prove my worth. I'd have nothing to be _best_ at. Most of all I was _falling_.

I spent days trying to find out what I needed. And then one day, after hearing another model acquaintance fretting over her weight, it seemed to come to me. It was my weight; it had to be. I was slightly heavier than some of the other girls I was competing against. If I only lost 10 more pounds I would have the spotlight back. And then I slowly started to change my diet to eating less and less. I started working out more too. But my modeling wasn't improving. I still wasn't getting enough jobs. So I worked out harder. Ran longer on the treadmill. Did more crunches. Ate less. It was a cycle. _Run. Run. Run. Try for a job. Run. Run. Run. Not get the job. Run. Run. Run._ The fewer jobs I got the more weight I tried to lose. Everything seems hazy now but I still remember the determination to just run one more mile so I could have the spotlight back. Reclaim what was supposed to be mine.

Nothing was changing to me. I wasn't getting skinnier in my mind. I wasn't getting enough jobs. I wasn't getting anywhere. So I started to experiment with losing my food by force. It was meant to be a once in a while thing before a new audition but it ended with me be coming a bulimic. I never meant to get out of control but no one ever does. No one ever means to fall like I did.

-Massie


	3. entry2

Dear Journal,

I promised Moria that I'd be completely honest and for now I will keep that promise. I don't owe her anything, but apparently I own myself this. So here I am, writing in a freaking journal in an attempt to sum up and explain everything that has happened to me ever since my "problem" started.

I doubt I could fit my entire life in one little journal but according to Moria I don't need my whole life in here, that's what my little autobiography she's making me write is for. This is only for the things that matter most and might have influenced my "problem" and the things that are currently happening and effect or matter most. But really how am I suppose to know what matters the most? How does anyone know what matters the most? I didn't bother offering this logic to Moria; she'd just brush it aside like anytime I try to tell her she's crazy. Obviously the only person who has to admit their problems here is me.

Currently life at home sucks a much as it ever has so I best just start the story of my "problem". I guess I could start with the beginning and from what I can tell the beginning always starts at home; that's where modeling started too. It all started with Kristen, but then again it always has. That's her jobs as the oldest sister, to lead, even when I don't want to follow. Kristen's older by two years. Perfect, bubbly, and the one everyone wants to be friends with. Forget the fact she'd bossy and loud, no one ever seemed to notice that but me, and maybe Claire.

Not that Claire would say anything about it. She's too _nice_. If Kristen appeared to be perfect, Claire really is. Younger by two years, she's the baby of the family. Sweet, innocent, innocent and delicate like a little flower. Everything that she said was perfect and polite unlike Kristen who blurts out whatever she feels without thought of others' feelings. Claire had always known what was expected and delivered without fail. Even when she was little and our grandmother died little Claire knew not to ask question and quietly helped Kristen with the housework. Claire really has always been the perfect one.

And squeezed in between my two practically perfect sisters is me, the odd one out. Moody, gloomy and silent; I'm the one who prefers closed doors. The one who can cut you to the core with the few words I bother to waste on you. I knew what I could do to you with just a glare, in fact there was a time I was proud of it. Now its just easier if I never have to see anyone, though my parents clearly don't get that by the way the cart me from one therapist to another. I've never been one to talk much though. I've always picked my words carefully. Even when I was "healthier" I chose what I wanted to say with though, unlike Kristen who could fill the room with her empty words.

There are my parents too, of course, but if I wanted to really start the story it's only my mother that mattered. She was the one who got Kristen started with modeling when Kris was 8, in an Easter ad. I wanted to model the moment my sister started too. It started as a classic little sister behavior until I got in front of camera, and then it wasn't. It was more than that. It was like that was the stage made for me. Where the whole world could watch me and love me without me needing to waste my words prance around like Kristen had too. I could be the one admired and nothing mattered but the camera, the one eye watching me that I didn't mind scrutinizing me. I adored the camera; I craved having its lens on me. I was willing to do anything to keep it on me, which is I guess what led me to my "problem". I wanted it too much. I was willing to die for the camera and I almost did- die, that is.

Of all my sisters I had the most potential in the modeling world. We were all beautiful, with the classic Block girls' blond hair and blue eyes. Kristen, at 5 ft 8 ½ inches, had the ability to convey her bubbly personality in just one glance but she was too curvy and voluptuous to go as far as everyone thought I would. Besides she simply didn't want it as much as I did. There were shoots where she'd just roll out of bed, hung over, and arrive late at the show. I'd never do that. Claire was bit to short (5 ft 7 inches) with her wiry athletic body, but she was still gorgeous. And yet she still wasn't expected for what my mother thought would come to me. I was the one with the real potential. Tall and rail thin with perfect bone structure and haunting eyes. At my 5 ft 10 inches height, I had everything I needed to make it. Or so everyone thought.

But then after my senior year of high school I headed to New York to try at modeling like Kristen had two years earlier. Sharing the apartment she already had was my parents' idea, which was more an order than anything. It started out as well as could be possibly expected. After all we had fought since I was born there was simply no way we'd get together easily. We were much too different. In fact Kristen wasn't even the problem; at least not when it started. It was me.

I had taken New York City by storm. Well, that's what it felt like at first. I was getting steady jobs. More than Kristen ever did, which was one of favorite things about my time there that I never told anyone about. But then it all started slipping away. The lens wasn't on me as much. My spotlight seemed to be dimming. Slowly fading away from me. And I didn't know what to do. The photographers were letting the camera wonder away from me, like I wasn't worth it as much as I had been. My agent stopped giving me as many calls about jobs as I had gotten before. I still had work but not the same endless focus I had once had only months earlier. It was scary and daunting. If felt like my time was running out. I need to capture the cameras again soon or everything I'd done so far would be lost. I'd be failing. I'd have nothing to show. Nothing to prove my worth. I'd have nothing to be _best_ at. Most of all I was _falling_.

I spent days trying to find out what I needed. And then one day, after hearing another model acquaintance fretting over her weight, it seemed to come to me. It was my weight; it had to be. I was slightly heavier than some of the other girls I was competing against. If I only lost 10 more pounds I would have the spotlight back. And then I slowly started to change my diet to eating less and less. I started working out more too. But my modeling wasn't improving. I still wasn't getting enough jobs. So I worked out harder. Ran longer on the treadmill. Did more crunches. Ate less. It was a cycle. _Run. Run. Run. Try for a job. Run. Run. Run. Not get the job. Run. Run. Run._ The fewer jobs I got the more weight I tried to lose. Everything seems hazy now but I still remember the determination to just run one more mile so I could have the spotlight back. Reclaim what was supposed to be mine.

Nothing was changing to me. I wasn't getting skinnier in my mind. I wasn't getting enough jobs. I wasn't getting anywhere. So I started to experiment with losing my food by force. It was meant to be a once in a while thing before a new audition but it ended with me be coming a bulimic. I never meant to get out of control but no one ever does. No one ever means to fall like I did.

-Olivia


	4. entry3

Dear Journal

In case it hasn't become obviously clear I'm not the type to end each entry in a cursive "Thanks for listening." And sign my name in flourish. First off a notebook is inanimate and can't even actually "listen" to this like a person. Second I'm writing not actually speaking, so said notebook couldn't even listen anyway, once again. And third I'm not some girly-girl who confesses to stalking my latest "crush" in a diary. I'm a 19 year-old girl who is being forced to write my "problems" by a psychotic therapist.

Being back at home was strange in the least. After being on my own, which is what I had always preferred anyway, it felt odd to be forced to depend on others. Even though I had admitted to myself that I had fallen, I still refused to say it aloud. I also, nine months after the hospital, refused to speak to Kristen, at all. Because even though Claire was the one to find me, it was Kristen who had watched me fall. And that hurt more. She had tried to catch me, to save me, to stop my fall. And I refuse to forgive her for that. For seeing me fall when I didn't want anyone knowing how weak I was. I was tired of Kristen trying to _fix_ me.

At home I felt so restricted. Like I was a prisoner. One who had to have her entire diet measured by her mother and constantly is checked on by her father. I wasn't allowed anywhere on my own either. Not to mention I had to watch my sister go from modeling shoot to modeling shoot. It was like they waved my biggest desire in front of me, tempting me with what I couldn't have. As if to say, _nah nah, look what you can't have because you made a mistake and now you'll never get it_. Well perhaps that was more childish than their true goals but at many times it's exactly how I felt. To be fair though, Claire was careful around me. Never mentioning modeling unless our mother brought it up and demanded a response and even then the sentences were politely curt.

When I finally got a day to myself with no supervision it wasn't at all like I planned. I had to drive Claire to school first. It had been so long since I last drove and the silent ride was welcome. When Claire finally spoke she asked if I was excited to have a day to myself. Focusing on the curb so I wouldn't have to look her in the eye at I tried to park I told her softly I had once had not just a day, but also my whole life to myself. That was just another thing stripped away from me.

It was planned that I'd see a movie and then shop a bit. It was not planned that after I finished both I'd be sitting in the car two blocks from home lying to my mother I was still at the mall and then having a break down. I still don't know what came over me. Maybe it was the exhaustion from not sleeping much ever since I had moved back home. Maybe it was the anger of losing everything to this point where I couldn't take going back home and facing my mother who would fret over me making sure I hadn't done anything forbidden. Or maybe it was just how lost I felt. Like nothing was anchoring me now that I was no longer being sucked into my personal black hole. Now, that I didn't have Kristen to compare myself to. It was strange to think that it took 9 months of not talking to her before I realized I missed her. Not enough to do anything. Not enough to answer her call when she called an hour after my mother fretted over me for being home late.

It was a strange evening too, that day. I couldn't sleep at all that night. Instead I held a flashlight writing random _words_ floating through my mind down on a piece of paper. It started with _perfect_. And then beside it in careful precise block letters _broken_. And it made me wonder what was perfect really? Was it possible really to be perfect? And broken, what does it really mean? To be hurt and torn or is it also the same as _missing_? Both words were so loose. So much left up to interpretation. At one point I though perfect was the only way to be happy, accepted. You had to be the _best_ to be anything. Now I've began to think maybe it's possible to be broken and happy but it's hard to tell. It the numbness I feel the same as joy?

And soon I started thinking about everything I had wanted to be and what I had where I had ended up. Do all stars have to fall? At times when I think back on New York I believe they do. Is _running_ any better than _falling_? Because I did both. I'm just trying to figure if I raced forward before I took a leap off the cliff and was thrust to the bottom of an endless pit or if I tumbled over the edge, landed with a "bam", and ran.

The craziest thought came to me that night too. I couldn't help but wonder if Alice was afraid as she tumbled down the hole or if she only became scared when she landed in an unfamiliar land. Did she welcome the darkness as she tumbled? Was she happy to not have to see anything? Was it a relief to finally feel blind in a sense? Was that why she fell in the first place? I mean did she not fall, but jump down the hole to _escape_ whatever was going on in the world above Wonderland? Could she not deal with the place she had come from? What was so bad up there she felt she needed to leap into the darkness? Maybe I _was_ Alice?

And so alone in the darkness I sat that day writing all these thoughts done long before Moria made me start this journal. I had folded up the paper and stuffed it under the mattress when I was done and shut out the lights. It was days later, but still before the journal, that I remembered the crinkled paper again. At first when I reread it I got scared. The thoughts I had written seemed so crazy, like I was losing my mind. I was afraid of the vulnerable girl I had become as I spilled my deepest thoughts on a paper in the dead of night as while the rest of the world slept. It wasn't still today that I could read the paper without feeling a pull in my guts and my throat catching as I reread the words I wrote, on a night that seemed so far away.

-Olivia


	5. entry4

Dear Journal

In case it hasn't become obviously clear I'm not the type to end each entry in a cursive "Thanks for listening." And sign my name in flourish. First off a notebook is inanimate and can't even actually "listen" to this like a person. Second I'm writing not actually speaking, so said notebook couldn't even listen anyway, once again. And third I'm not some girly-girl who confesses to stalking my latest "crush" in a diary. I'm a 19 year-old girl who is being forced to write my "problems" by a psychotic therapist.

Being back at home was strange in the least. After being on my own, which is what I had always preferred anyway, it felt odd to be forced to depend on others. Even though I had admitted to myself that I had fallen, I still refused to say it aloud. I also, nine months after the hospital, refused to speak to Kristen, at all. Because even though Claire was the one to find me, it was Kristen who had watched me fall. And that hurt more. She had tried to catch me, to save me, to stop my fall. And I refuse to forgive her for that. For seeing me fall when I didn't want anyone knowing how weak I was. I was tired of Kristen trying to _fix_ me.

At home I felt so restricted. Like I was a prisoner. One who had to have her entire diet measured by her mother and constantly is checked on by her father. I wasn't allowed anywhere on my own either. Not to mention I had to watch my sister go from modeling shoot to modeling shoot. It was like they waved my biggest desire in front of me, tempting me with what I couldn't have. As if to say, _nah nah, look what you can't have because you made a mistake and now you'll never get it_. Well perhaps that was more childish than their true goals but at many times it's exactly how I felt. To be fair though, Claire was careful around me. Never mentioning modeling unless our mother brought it up and demanded a response and even then the sentences were politely curt.

When I finally got a day to myself with no supervision it wasn't at all like I planned. I had to drive Claire to school first. It had been so long since I last drove and the silent ride was welcome. When Claire finally spoke she asked if I was excited to have a day to myself. Focusing on the curb so I wouldn't have to look her in the eye at I tried to park I told her softly I had once had not just a day, but also my whole life to myself. That was just another thing stripped away from me.

It was planned that I'd see a movie and then shop a bit. It was not planned that after I finished both I'd be sitting in the car two blocks from home lying to my mother I was still at the mall and then having a break down. I still don't know what came over me. Maybe it was the exhaustion from not sleeping much ever since I had moved back home. Maybe it was the anger of losing everything to this point where I couldn't take going back home and facing my mother who would fret over me making sure I hadn't done anything forbidden. Or maybe it was just how lost I felt. Like nothing was anchoring me now that I was no longer being sucked into my personal black hole. Now, that I didn't have Kristen to compare myself to. It was strange to think that it took 9 months of not talking to her before I realized I missed her. Not enough to do anything. Not enough to answer her call when she called an hour after my mother fretted over me for being home late.

It was a strange evening too, that day. I couldn't sleep at all that night. Instead I held a flashlight writing random _words_ floating through my mind down on a piece of paper. It started with _perfect_. And then beside it in careful precise block letters _broken_. And it made me wonder what was perfect really? Was it possible really to be perfect? And broken, what does it really mean? To be hurt and torn or is it also the same as _missing_? Both words were so loose. So much left up to interpretation. At one point I though perfect was the only way to be happy, accepted. You had to be the _best_ to be anything. Now I've began to think maybe it's possible to be broken and happy but it's hard to tell. It the numbness I feel the same as joy?

And soon I started thinking about everything I had wanted to be and what I had where I had ended up. Do all stars have to fall? At times when I think back on New York I believe they do. Is _running_ any better than _falling_? Because I did both. I'm just trying to figure if I raced forward before I took a leap off the cliff and was thrust to the bottom of an endless pit or if I tumbled over the edge, landed with a "bam", and ran.

The craziest thought came to me that night too. I couldn't help but wonder if Alice was afraid as she tumbled down the hole or if she only became scared when she landed in an unfamiliar land. Did she welcome the darkness as she tumbled? Was she happy to not have to see anything? Was it a relief to finally feel blind in a sense? Was that why she fell in the first place? I mean did she not fall, but jump down the hole to _escape_ whatever was going on in the world above Wonderland? Could she not deal with the place she had come from? What was so bad up there she felt she needed to leap into the darkness? Maybe I _was_ Alice?

And so alone in the darkness I sat that day writing all these thoughts done long before Moria made me start this journal. I had folded up the paper and stuffed it under the mattress when I was done and shut out the lights. It was days later, but still before the journal, that I remembered the crinkled paper again. At first when I reread it I got scared. The thoughts I had written seemed so crazy, like I was losing my mind. I was afraid of the vulnerable girl I had become as I spilled my deepest thoughts on a paper in the dead of night as while the rest of the world slept. It wasn't still today that I could read the paper without feeling a pull in my guts and my throat catching as I reread the words I wrote, on a night that seemed so far away.

-Olivia


	6. entry5

Dear Journal,

There are some things, that in a strange way, I almost never expected to do again, and cooking was one of them. My mother had all but verbally forbidden me from having anything to do with my meal other than eating it. Meaning no prepping or cooking whatsoever. She measured all my meals from the cereal at breakfast to my rice at dinner.

But, because she was away, and because I made a spur of the moment decision to go on a self-determined quest of the sort, I started to _try _to make diner- Spaghetti, specifically. It started as bit off catastrophe. I'm mean, it _was _perhaps a stupid notion: a girl with and eating disorder and bulimia, making dinner? It would have ended in a comedy-like scene probably, if Claire hadn't come down. I had just opened the cupboard a pile of pots and saucepan fell out causing a series of rather loud _bang_s. I dropping to knees after a few choice words, to shove the pans back in. Claire popped into the kitchen as I roughly pushed in the last pot to check that everything was okay.

"I'm fine," I answered but even before I finished I knew I was lying.

_Fine_, why did we always keep coming back to that word? Everyone, but Kristen, my oldest sister,in our family had used it when asked how we were. It was the immediate un-thought about answer- robotic and part of the script. It wouldn't matter if we were in the middle of a hurricane. We were still just _fine_.

It was clear to both of us, though, that I was not _fine_. I was in desperate need of help, but neither of us wanted to be the one to take the first step. In fairness, I would have shot her down only weeks ago if she asked me, but somehow now it all seemed different. Like the big gap between us was closing; even as I increasingly realize how far we had drifted. As is only by discovering how far your ship had drifted from shore could you start to find your way home and close the daunting distance of an ocean.

I looked at Claire, only on the other side of the kitchen, barely a few feet away,but at the same time I felt like the Grand Canyon was separating us. I started wondering- about us, about me, about everything. About how maybe, when you're in the kind of place in life I am, it takes one more person then you think to get you out. It takes not only the other person who is reaching out, offering the hand, but you, yourself, who must accept the hand and take it**-**take the chance the other person won't let you fall again and will take you somewhere better.

Claire's unwavering gaze held mine the whole time I thought about all of this, her deep blue eyes, so much like my own. And trusting her, trusting me, I took the leap. I asked her for the help. Immediately she swooped forward and helped me. Sorting pots, setting temperatures. Before I knew it we were making diner together, boiling pasta and such, in a comfortable silence. Not the usual empty quietness that seemed to stretch thin when the two of us were together. It was odd to do since I never make my own meals anymore, but in a weird way enjoyable.

And as we sat at the table much to big for the two of us she commented on how well it had come out. A fine line with cooking she said, and I couldn't think of how true that was for life too. It was such a long narrow tight rope we all had to walk. And so slowly, so steadily, you must walk to keep from falling. But even if you fall there's always someone you can count to catch you. I was lucky I had more than one person. I had two sisters.

-Olivia


	7. entry6

Dear Journal,

It's funny how time seems to always repeat itself. How people never really change. It's all the same in the end. An endless cycle no one can escape.

I had slowly been accepting the changes with life at home as they came and even making a few of my own. It had started with hesitantly volunteering to fill in for on of my dad's pregnant secretaries. It was, to my surprise, rather fun to make a little idle chit-chat with the women there, all of which where hilarious. Then I made small changes at home. Keeping my usually shut door slightly ajar, then open once in awhile, and finally hanging out down stairs either by the pool or living rooms.

I was in the dinning room when Claire found me writing the "history" that Moria, my physiatrist, wanted me to write. Basically, I need to write down all the events I remember, year by year, before my eating "problem" and then a separate one for after my disorder started. I tried to explain to Claire how Moria believed there was a link but at the same time a distinct difference between the two. I was stuck on the year when I was eleven; Claire reminded me how that was the year I broke my arm on Claire's birthday.

It wasn't till I was alone in my room that I realized how repetitive life is- and then I cried.

_It was on Claire's birthday, the twenty-second of June. School was out and Kristen was biking over to the pool to meet some friends and asked me to come along. I didn't want to go, to follow after her, but in the end as I so often did, I went along in her shadow. It was halfway through the ride that I grew angry. I tired of following. I was tired of being second. I was tired of being in the background, never getting to lead. So then I just didn't. I didn't follow. I turned around back and pedaled as fast as I could. _

_It was so great. The totally and complete freedom. I was the star now. No body was deciding where I go. It was all my own. Mine. And then I was flying. My wheel must have sunk, because suddenly I was airborne. Such a funny feeling to have the air rushing past you. And then, just as you realize you're flying, you start sinking. I felt like I crashed to the pavement. My cheek pressed against the warm asphalt. My bone in my arm had broken and yet the only thing running through my mind was how unfair it all was. To finally get the freedom you always wanted and then be punished after only a taste. _

_I was broken and hurt. I was so alone, or so it felt. Until I heard Kristen call my name. The last person I wanted to see me fall. The person I least wanted to try and help me. And yet despite what I wanted, she was what I needed. Kristen lifted me on to her handlebars. I should have been grateful. But instead I was angry. Angry at myself for falling so hard, and angry at her for being there to see it. When we reached the drive way it was Claire who opened the door. Little Claire seeing me hurt, and yelling for help. It was her job after all, the one who told. The one who's voice cried out._

_We all had our jobs. It was me who fell, who broke. It was Kristen who tried to catch me, to save me. And it was Claire who told._

I cried so hard when I realized. Realized how this story was so much like the one of my eating disorder. How the night they found my broken body, the cry I had heard, why it had been familiar. Maybe I can't be saved; maybe this is destiny. I will always be the broken one of my sister, till I have too little left to break. And that somehow was the saddest thought. That maybe it was a cycle and maybe I should just tell my family so they don't waste to much time putting me together if I'm only going to break again.

-Olivia


	8. entry7

Dear Journal,

I hadn't planned to go. I had planned to stay at home and figure out what to do with myself now that I knew the truth. Now that knew I was always going to break. But instead I found myself at the Westchester Modeling Fashion Show watching Claire come down the runway.

I was leaning against a planter in front of a vitamin store, at least fifty feet behind the back of the fashion-show crowd but I knew she could see me. I watched as kept her face blank like a good model but her eyes still showed her shock. Our eyes meet and I stepped forward, sliding my hands in my pockets, and for a moment the only thing I could do was fell a tug in my chest, before she had to turn and go back up the runway.

It still hurt to just _think_ about all that I lost when it came to modeling. Watching it happen before me, when I couldn't be a part of it cut me to the core. I no longer got to be the star and have the cameras on me. I no longer got to be center stage. I was in the backgrounds, for real this time. But maybe this is where I belong. Maybe the life I painted for myself was never the right one.

-Olivia


End file.
